


Tell It To Your Heart

by heartofthesunrise



Series: broke nyc au [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 14:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19813939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofthesunrise/pseuds/heartofthesunrise
Summary: Because when they were in undergrad Zayn had always meant to kiss Niall at a party like this, and it’d never happened, so he keeps coming to them to see if the pull is still there.He watches the gleam of sweat on Niall’s neck as he throws his head back and laughs at one of Liam’s jokes. Zayn wants to lick it off.The pull is still there, then.-NYC broke 20somethings au, for the prompt "things you said with no space between us" on tumblr.





	Tell It To Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr](https://warpedtourniall.tumblr.com/post/186296819696/to-help-your-inspo-ill-give-two-options-for)

Even the breeze is too hot, thick with humidity, blowing in off the river. From here Zayn can see the spangled slash of Brooklyn’s lights across the water, where he should be getting off the L and going to bed. 

He has work in the morning, after all, and this party’s not living up to the hype.

It should be cooler up here on the roof but it’s not. This building is one of those rent-controlled disasters, the landlords leaving repairs untended so they can oust the tenants and remodel. It’s been a stalemate for years, with the paint peeling and the hallway lightbulbs burnt out and the bathroom sink in Niall’s apartment not draining properly. When Niall uses the microwave built in above the stove in his postage stamp-sized kitchen there’s a fifty percent chance he blows a fuse and has to go into the crawlspace to flip all the switches in the breaker box, only the light of his phone to go by. 

But the rent is cheap enough and it’s down on the lower East, where everything’s easy to get to and it feels like really living in New York. Zayn’s rented room in Bushwick feels like living in New York too, but in a windowless, depressing, nine hundred dollars a month way. Niall’s place is so dilapidated and central that it’s romantic, somehow. 

Plus it’s got roof access, and a decent view up here. They’ve dragged a dozen lawn chairs up and now that they party’s going as hard as it’s likely to, they’re all occupied. New couples cuddled together despite the heat; girls texting their friends, seeing where the next stop on a long night of social engagements might be; Harry plugging his phone into the speakers and putting on something indie and sentimental. 

Zayn puts his palms flat on the ledge that spans the roof’s perimeter. If he looks out over the city he feels it, that impossible, romantic feeling of _being_ here. Being swept up in it. When they’d all been in school upstate, taking the train down to the city for the day was a melting treat in his sweaty palm, uncomfortable and temporary and so delicious he couldn’t contain himself, and now... 

He finds Niall across the roof in the press of people, always at the center of something. His hair has grown out, and only the barest ruffle of blond remains. He’s laughing; Liam has shown up, and has one bare arm thrown around Niall’s shoulders, laughing with him. Zayn wonders if Louis will turn up tonight. It seems like since graduation it’s been hard to get the five of them in the same room. 

Truth be told Zayn wouldn’t have come out tonight except it’s Niall, and when Niall asks him to come to one of his rooftop parties he asks like he means it. He remembers something they were talking about the last time they hung out and follows up about it; he takes a picture of himself at the bodega getting the Brooklyn pennant ale Zayn’s been drinking lately. Zayn can’t say no to him. 

And because when they were in undergrad Zayn had always meant to kiss Niall at a party like this, and it’d never happened, so he keeps coming to them to see if the pull is still there. 

He watches the gleam of sweat on Niall’s neck as he throws his head back and laughs at one of Liam’s jokes. Zayn wants to lick it off. 

The pull is still there, then. 

Harry finds him a moment later, still nursing his beer, watching Niall. Harry has abandoned his phone to the aux cable, even though more people seem to be showing up every minute, people Zayn doesn’t recognize. But that’s Harry: if somebody walks off with his phone, he won’t be bothered. He’ll embrace the opportunity to live off-grid until his parents send him a new one. 

“You’re gonna burn a hole in his top, staring at him like that,” Harry says. He’s drinking what looks like bourbon over ice in a moderately clean mason jar. When he leans in Zayn can smell the cloying scent of ginger ale undercutting the liquor. 

Instead of answering, Zayn shrugs. Harry knows Zayn’s got... A crush, he guesses, is what you’d call it. Or, everybody knows Zayn’s got a crush. He’s not subtle, and he’s given up trying to be. At this point if Niall doesn’t know it’s got to be willful ignorance. 

“Zayn,” Harry says, in the way that means he’s accidentally gotten too drunk while sitting down, and now that he’s standing it’s hit him all at once. “I think he’d be down, if you just... Asked him.” 

Zayn takes a moment, finishes the last of his beer. It _would_ be that easy, he thinks, because Niall likes to have fun, and isn’t the type to make it complicated or awkward in the morning. Zayn could pull him aside, into the rooftop’s sole dark corner beside the door to the stairwell. He could kiss him, and Niall would probably be up for it, would let the party go on while they fumbled their way back downstairs and into Niall’s bed, which is just a mattress on the floor. They could have the sort of unromantic, un-air conditioned sex Zayn’s friends are always having now that they all live here and hate their jobs and feel the looming weight of their dreams. Zayn could wake up next to Niall knowing he took the chance, and maybe Niall would walk him to the door and kiss him, but the more Zayn thinks about it the more he feels dizzy and sick in a way that has nothing to do with the beer he’s been drinking. 

“I don’t know,” Zayn tells Harry, which seems to cover most of his feelings even if it doesn’t plumb their depths. “I don’t think it’s meant to happen.” 

Because if Zayn had thought in college about kissing Niall at a party like this one, since they all moved down into the city and started what he was still naively thinking of as “grownup life,” he’s been thinking about moving around him in his tiny kitchen, about assembling a flat-pack bed frame with him to get his mattress off the floor, and sleeping beside him, close despite the humidity. When Niall’s working on a film down in the financial district and Zayn is temping at some soulless office building nearby and they meet up for lunch Zayn thinks about making two sandwiches in the morning, about taking the same train to different stops with Niall, about coming home to him. 

He’s considering the possibility that it’s not really a crush, anymore. 

The music pauses awkwardly as a text tone chimes from the speakers. 

“Oh, shit, my phone,” Harry says, and vanishes. 

Zayn turns back to the edge of the roof, slouching so he can lean his forearms on the ledge. He doesn’t like looking down, but he suspects it’s good for him. It’s healthy to let the terror pass over him, to open his eyes to it until the lights below resolve themselves. Taxis stuck in midnight traffic. Cigarette lighters. Lampposts. 

“Are you looking aesthetically tragic on purpose?” 

It’s Niall, suddenly close behind Zayn. He’s gotten entirely too much sun this summer: his face is red, which might just be from drinking, but Zayn can make out the faint fuzz of his nose peeling. 

“How else am I going to get handsome boys to come talk to me?” Zayn asks, and watches Niall’s blush deepen. 

_I could fall in love with you,_ he thinks. _If I let myself, it would be so easy._

“You need another drink? Ice cube down the back of your shirt?” Niall asks. “I’m roasting up here.” He tugs the collar of his sleeveless shirt away, and Zayn chases a bead of sweat down his chest with his eyes. 

“Think I’m heading home pretty soon, actually,” Zayn says. The L is still fucked up on weekends - who knows how long it’ll take him to get home. 

“Noooo,” Niall says, putting his sweaty arms around Zayn’s neck. It’s entirely too warm for anybody to be touching anybody else, but Zayn doesn’t lean away. He leans in instead, presses his sweaty cheek to Niall’s sweaty neck. 

“I’ve got to,” he says. “I’ve got work tomorrow.” 

Niall makes a dismissive noise, not letting Zayn out of the hug. “Crash with me,” he says. 

Zayn searches the words for a hidden meaning: _come to bed with me,_ maybe. _Stop letting yourself drift apart from all our friends,_ more likely. _You haven’t been out with us properly in weeks and friendships take work after college._

“I can’t go to work dressed like this,” Zayn says. 

Niall steps back and looks at Zayn: his twiggy arms; the black tank top hanging off him; his skinny jeans laddered with rips. “Borrow something of mine,” he says. They’re still standing close. “It’ll give you an excuse to come back soon.” 

The party’s filled right up. There’s nowhere for Zayn to escape to. Niall is smiling at him in a way that he knows means he could lean in and kiss him and it wouldn’t mean anything. 

“One more drink,” he says, and Niall beams at him, tugging him by the wrist through the crowd to where the coolers are. 

“You won’t regret it,” Niall says, handing him another beer. The Brooklyn pennant ale he’d bought special for Zayn. It makes him heartsick. 

_I will,_ Zayn thinks. He pops the cap with the butt of his lighter and takes a drink. _I will._ Niall smiles big. _I will._


End file.
